


whatever a moon has always meant

by euterpes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Heavy Angst, Kinda, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Slow Burn, ben cries, hux captures rey and ben is not happy, lil bit rey/poe, prisoner rey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 09:37:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17506133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euterpes/pseuds/euterpes
Summary: "And then it is so simple. Like a planet in its orbit or like a moon to its planet, they close the distance between them in the ancient way the celestial beings have been doing for millenia.(Are they not celestial beings?)"—rey isolates herself from the resistance to protect the people she loves. supreme leader kylo ren finds her. the rest, as they say, is history.





	whatever a moon has always meant

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! this is my first star wars fic, finally caved in to write about my garbage son. i love these two so much, y'all. hope i do them justice. this chapter is pretty short, it's mostly a prologue & set up for the real action and aNgST!!!

A memory:

The world is still on fire when she wakes. It’s softer now: no daunting, red figures trying to kill her, no embers falling like starlight and forgiveness, no broken boy in front of her, asking her to stay.

(“Please.”)

She picks herself up, wincing—when did she hurt her arm?— and surveys the damage done to the throne room. The bodies of the Praetorian guards lay still on the cold floor, but the memory of fighting them, together, of the adrenaline and the thrill and the _hope_ of it, seems so far away. The bisected body of Snoke lays in pieces, nearly toppling off the throne. Rey feels a sickening shock of satisfaction.

And Ben. She stands over his crumpled body, curled in slightly on itself like the early stages of a star’s death. Hair mats his face; she can barely make out the soft downturn of his lashes, the resting curve of his lips. Rey nudges her foot at his thigh, gently. He doesn’t stir. 

She could kill him, now. She had seen him after they fought together, saw how he looked at the throne. (Like how he looked at her, moments after, but that was softer). And in the turmoil that would ensue once the First Order realized the Supreme Leader was dead, and his logical successor gone too, would not that place them on equal footing with the Resistance? Give them extra time, at least? 

Or she could take him with her. To seek some sort of absolution for his crimes, to exact some sort of vengeance for the lives he’s taken. (And there have been so many, haven’t there? She’s seen them, seen the anguish they caused him.) Or to bring Ben Solo back to his mother.

They would kill him too though. Perhaps kinder to do it now. It is so easy when she summons his lightsaber to her hand and holds it towards his prone body, red and crackling and threatening death, like everything else in this godforsaken room.

Kinder, Rey thinks. Selfless. To kill him now before the angry masses (of what’s left) of the Resistance do, or even the First Order, if they learn of his tyranny. Kinder. Selfless.

But Rey has lived years under the cruel Jakku sun. She has learned to be selfish. And she’s gotten out of Jakku, too. Learned how to not be alone.

It is with a selfishness— a harsh, hot selfishness she keeps under her breast, one that keens at parting from him— that Rey tucks Ben’s lightsaber into his belt, and escapes through a pod, back to the Resistance. Alone.

(But she isn’t really alone, is she?)

  
  
  
  


**

  
  
  
  
Rey has learned to hate Ben Solo again. 

She crafts it carefully, as carefully as she keeps the connection between them closed: listening to all her friends blaspheming the new Supreme Leader, hearing of his exploits and the deaths he leaves in their wake, and at night, reliving their old conversations in her head like evidence. 

But those memories stay clean, shining, no matter how much she despises the man on the throne she sees in the holovids: the crackling of the fire. The cascading of the rain. His fingers, pressed against hers. Feeling like she’s just swallowed a thousand stars.

Perhaps that’s why the force still bleeds through. She feels it sometimes, when she’s fixing the Falcon or training with Finn or going over plans with Leia and Poe. The air will shudder around her and she’ll always catch a glimpse of something— the shining bareness of his skin as he trains, the twitch of his fingers in a meeting, the softness of his features when he’s sleeping— before she shuts it down.

This is why she leaves the Resistance.

It’s the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. She leaves when she knows Finn will be visiting Rose, when Chewie is off board the Falcon. She writes a note for Leia. (She cannot look into Leia’s eyes and see his and not reveal everything). She leaves, and it’s the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. And yet, she’s left so many times before.

  
  
  
  


**

  
  
  
  
Rey is going to die. 

This much is clear to her, in the chaos and blur of everything. It was supposed to be a simple recon mission, abroad the First Order’s new dreadnought. But there were too many Stormtroopers. And some type of Force-inhibiting energy.

The legion advances. Rey grasps her saberstaff, swinging and knocking down those that get closest to her. She uses one as a shield, pivoting and firing back with the blaster she holds in her non-wielding hand. But wave after wave of enemies advance. She’s overwhelmed.

In an instant, everything changes. The troopers shift, and back down. They seem to part for the figure who heads towards her. For a second Rey feels a wildness too strange to place. But the man that looms before her is not the one she knows.

She sees the flash of a blaster, and is out.

  
  
  
  


**

  
  
  
  
She’s been here before. The cold of the interrogation rack she’s on, the edge of the durasteel restraint at her wrists and ankles, and the dark, sleek walls—she has been here before, a lifetime ago, with a boy she’d feared until she discovered more about him, and about herself. 

But the man in front of her has no mask. His face is cruel, eyes narrowed and gleaming something that frightens Rey. His hair is a violent dirty red, slicked back sharply in the anemic light. “I see we’ve caught ourselves a Force-user,” he sneers, but the way he says it makes Rey thinks he could be saying _Bantha shit_.

Rey braces herself up, leaning as much as her restraints will let her. She doesn’t say a word.

“I’m General Hux,” the man continues. He’s haughty and leering: perhaps Rey can get a rise out of him. “And you’re the girl Ren has been so obsessed with.”

She almost flinches. 

Hux— Poe had mentioned him, Rey remembers now, the man had been completely loyal to Snoke, brutal beyond means— bends down. His eyeline is level with hers. “Now I don’t have the same Force powers as you or Ren. No mind tricks or torture. But I like my interrogations old-fashioned anyways.” His voice is casual, like he’s ordering caf from a shop. “Tell me, where is the Resistance nowadays?”

She doesn’t respond. 

“That’s what I thought.” He backs away, only to be replaced by two troopers. Rey feels something like fear prick through her. Pain she can handle. But she’s alone; no one knows where she is. There will be no coming out this interrogation chamber. 

The troopers advance. Rey sees the first blow, feels the hard armor against her cheek, twisting her neck and knocking her into the cold of the rack. The onslaught continues, raining punch after punch on her prone body. Hux’s voice floats through, repeating the question over and over. 

It must be minutes before it finally stops. Her left eye is swollen shut, a throbbing pain that emits through her whole face. Still she sees Hux pace in the room, and feels a dull burst of satisfaction. He will not break her, not when both the Jakku sun and the pleas of a boy clothed in fire could not. 

The man nears her again, angry and volatile. He hisses, “You won’t give up your precious Resistance? Very well.”

She can taste the blood in her mouth, feel it trickle down her head. 

His face looms over her, just inches away from her nose. “Just answer me one thing and I’ll let you go, girl. I’ve been mulling it over for weeks. I’ve been wondering how a little girl, untrained in the force, could take down the Supreme Leader, Ren, and all of his Praetorian guards all by herself.”

It’s a different kind of panic, hot and skintight, that spreads through her. She has tried to disconnect Ben from what she’s experiencing right now. Spitting out blood, she replies, “maybe I’m just that strong.”

“See, I don’t believe that.” In one movement— quicker than she believed a person of his complexion and lank could move— he grasps her arm and pulls. There’s a pop of the bone dislodging. She hears herself scream. “Tell me, girl. Did Kylo Ren kill Snoke?”

Rey closes her eyes. It does hurt, then. Everything hurts. She thinks of an ocean, not just any ocean now but the blue waters of Ahch-To, of late nights hearing the waves crash against rocks, of someone telling her she is not alone. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says. Maybe her voice trembles.

And then she reaches out in the force, weak and warily, like a sand cat after a drought.

(Maybe he hears her).

**Author's Note:**

> pls leave kudos & a comment if u enjoyed :')
> 
> ps: can u tell i'm a slut for a good em dash and parentheses lmao


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